Wireless telephone service providers employ various methods of charging users for telephone usage within a calling network. Typically, users are charged based on factors including the time of day that a call is made or received, the length of the call, the location of the party to whom the call is directed, and the location of the user. A “calling plan” refers to a rate structure or cost structure used by telephone service providers for charging a customer for telephone use. Many calling plans and their associated rate structures are imposed by a telephone service provider and chosen by a user. A particular user's calling plan is typically defined in a contract between the telephone service provider and the user. Telephone service providers typically charge users a periodic fee, normally a monthly fee, under a calling plan for telephone service.
Telephone service providers typically charge users for units of time, or minutes, during which a call is made or received. Although for ease of presentation, the term “minute” is used herein to refer to a unit of time used for telephone network services, other units of time could be substituted. The term “minute” is also often used to refer to a credit of time which may be used by the user to make telephone calls. Telephone service providers offer “minutes” to users for purchase and use.
Based on the calling plan, the telephone service provider charges the user for telephone use at a certain rate or cost structure. As noted above, one factor in determining the rate that the telephone service provider charges the user is the geographic location of the user when a call is made or received. When the user makes or receives calls outside a pre-defined geographic area defined by the calling plan, the user is considered a “roaming” wireless telephone user or a “roamer.” A roamer is typically charged an higher per minute rate for any call made while roaming. The geographic area defined by the calling plan in which users receive no roaming charges is often referred to as the “home calling area.”
Such calling plans are often used in wireless telephone networks. A detailed discussion of how a wireless telephone network detects when a user is roaming can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,610,973 to Comer, which is hereby incorporated by reference.
A wireless telephone service provider typically offers customers the choice of a plurality of calling plans. The telephone service provider typically charges the user a periodic fee, usually a monthly fee, for the wireless service. Each calling plan has a cost structure, i.e., a rate charged per minute of telephone use or a certain number of minutes of telephone use that is included in the periodic fee after which the user is charged a per minute rate. Each calling plan also has a geographic area associated with the plan. If calls are made or received within the geographic area defined by the calling plan, the user is charged according to the normal cost structure of the plan. If calls are made outside the home calling area, a roaming charge is incurred. The roaming charge is typically an extra fee per minute of roaming wireless telephone usage. Calling plans that include a large home calling area relative to other calling plans are typically more expensive than calling plans that include a relatively small home calling area. Examples of relatively large home calling area plans include “national” plans that do not charge roaming fees for domestic calls, e.g., within the United States.
Roaming charges are often much higher than many customers are willing to pay on a regular basis. Many wireless telephone users simply do not use their wireless telephones when they are not within their home calling area because they do not wish to incur roaming charges.
Conventional calling plans have an “all or nothing” approach to charging for a larger home calling area or paying roaming charges. Users who travel frequently are willing to pay a higher fee for a calling plan that includes a relatively large home calling area. These users avoid roaming charges in exchange for choosing a more expensive calling plan. However, users who travel occasionally, but infrequently, are often unwilling to pay a higher fee for a relatively large home calling area. For example, a user who travels outside his or her home calling area once or twice a year is often unwilling to pay a higher fee during the entire year in order to avoid roaming charges during his or her infrequent travels outside the home calling area.
Although an infrequent traveler is often unwilling to pay for a more expensive calling plan with a larger home calling area, the infrequent traveler may want to use his or her wireless telephone during his infrequent trips but be unwilling to pay roaming charges. This situation leads to customer frustration and irritation and represents a lost business opportunity for wireless telephone service providers.
These and other problems are avoided and numerous advantages are provided by the method described herein.